March 2017 Show!

Springtime is around the corner, but it’s not here yet. And while Los Angeles may not feel the icy grasp of winter, you can still get shivers down your spine when you come to our 20th show!

Reading is dangerous. Readers are dangerous too. Join us, and find out why.

AND! Now you can buy a Season Pass! For $90 you’ll get
-Access to all remaining 2017 shows
-Priority seating
-Two guest passes for 2017
-Access to members-only events and perks
-The undying/undead gratitude of two big nerds
-And more!
The Season Pass option will be available via Brown Paper Tickets once online ticketing goes live, and will be up on our website very soon! Only 40 memberships will be available, and once they’re gone, they’re gone until next year.

FEATURING:

 

Michelle Tea is the author of ten books, most recently Black Wave. Said The New Yorker, ‘Events, though outlandish, are narrated with total conviction, and powerfully express the intensity both of attaining sobriety and of the writing process.’ A literary organizer, Michelle has created many long-running literary projects, most recently Drag Queen Story Hour here in Los Angeles. She is the founding editor of Amethyst Editions, a publishing imprint of The Feminist Press.

 

 


Jennifer Brody is a graduate of Harvard University, a creative writing instructor at the Writing Pad, and a volunteer mentor for the Young Storytellers Foundation. She founded and runs BookPod, a social media group for authors, and she lives and writes in LA. After studying film at Harvard University, she began her career in Hollywood. Highlights include working for Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes and New Line Cinema, most notably on “The Lord of the Rings” films and “The Golden Compass.” In 2008, she produced the film “Make It Happen” for The Weinstein Company. She is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and the Romance Writers of America (RWA).


Mike Robinson has been writing since age 7, when his story “Aliens In My Backyard!” became a runaway bestseller, topping international charts (or maybe that was also just a product of his imagination). He has since published fiction in a dozen magazines, literary anthologies and podcasts. His debut novel, Skunk Ape Semester, released by Solstice Publishing, was a Finalist in the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Currently he’s the managing editor of Literary Landscapes, the official magazine of the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society. His supernatural novels The Green-Eyed Monster, Negative Space (both part of The Enigma of Twilight Falls trilogy), The Prince of Earth, and Too Much Dark Matter, Too Little Gray: A Collection of Weird Fiction are all available. He also co-authored Hurakan’s Chalice, the third installment of Aiden James’ bestselling “Talisman Chronicles” series. His most recent book is The Atheist, about a celebrity secular pundit who undergoes a near-death experience. You can find him on Amazon, Facebook, and at his website, www.mikerobinson-author.com.


Forrest Leo was born in a log cabin in 1990.  He grew up in Alaska, and holds a BFA in drama from NYU/Tisch.  While living in New York, he worked as a carpenter, a photographer, and in a cubicle.   He now lives in LA, where he worked at Walgreens for a day.  He writes novels, plays, and screenplays.  His debut novel, The Gentleman, was published by Penguin Press in 2016.

 


David G. Boyd is co-editor of Inventory, a translation journal from Princeton University. He has translated stories by Toh EnJoe, Genichiro Takahashi and Hyakken Uchida. His work has appeared in Monkey Business, Words Without Borders and Granta. David’s translation of Slow Boat, a novel by Hideo Furukawa, will be out this June from Pushkin Press.


and co-host Lauren Candia has been blinding Los Angeles and the Inland Empire with library science for over a decade.  When not planning literary events, she writes creepy stories and is currently working on her first YA novel. Her work can be found in the East Jasmine Review and the Los Angeles Times. Her science fiction short story, “Miracles in Wastelands”, appeared on display at the dA Center for the Arts as part of The Art In/Of Diversity collaborative project.  She will be your BFF on Facebook and Twitter (@ParanormaLauren).  All you have to do is ask.  You may wish to catch her on Instagram as well if you don’t mind being inundated with pictures of her adorable dog and the man who gives her a reason to smile every day.


Hosted by Xach Fromson and Lauren Candia

$10 online (coming soon) or at the door (if there are any tickets left–we’ve sold out the past three shows!).


Doors at 7:30 pm
Show at 8:00 pmRSVP on Facebook here.The Mystic MuseumBooks will be sold at the event, courtesy of Skylight Books.

This episode is from January, 2016. It features Elise Forier Edie, Co-founder Xach Fromson, and David Gerrold, who were promoting the Horror Writers Association’s book Winter Horror Days. Profits from the book go to support the HWA hardship fund, which helps authors in need of a little assistance get their feet back under them.

 

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(basically, you’re free to download it, play it, share it, etc. so long as you leave it whole and don’t charge anybody for it.)

January 2017 Show!

For the first three years of our existence, we were part of the rising tide of multiculturalism, of nonbinary inclusion, of acceptance, and of pride in breaking down barriers between readers and authors who might not look/sound/think alike.

Nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed.

We are now part of the #Resistance. We remain committed to these goals. Bringing authors together who can shine a spotlight on minority voices in genre fiction, who can entice our fans and our readers to reach beyond the shelves full of names they’re accustomed to seeing.

We want to, in a very literal sense, help change the narrative. And our author lineup for this show is exemplary of exactly that.

FEATURING:

Martin PoussonMartin Pousson was born and raised in Acadiana, the Cajun French bayou land of Louisiana. His new novel, Black Sheep Boy, includes stories that won a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Two of his stories were finalists for the Glimmer Train Fiction Awards. His collection of poetry, Sugar, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and his first novel, No Place, Louisiana, was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. His writing has appeared in The Advocate, Antioch Review, Epoch, Five Points, New Orleans Review, StoryQuarterly, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Loyola University, New Orleans, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Columbia University, New York. As a student, he founded Out/Here, marched with NO/AIDS Task Force, and protested with ACT UP and Queer Nation. Then he taught at Columbia University, Rutgers University, and Loyola University. As a professor, he advised LGBTQA, Queer Ambassadors, Queer People of Color Collective, and the Pride Center Coalition. He now teaches at California State University Northridge and lives in downtown Los Angeles.


Maria Alexander is a produced screenwriter, games writer, virtual world designer, award-winning copywriter, interactive theatre designer, prolific fiction writer and poet. Her stories have appeared in publications such as Chiaroscuro Magazine, Gothic.net and Paradox, as well as in acclaimed anthologies alongside legends such as David Morrell and Heather Graham. Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. When she’s not wielding a katana at her local Shinkendo dojo, she’s being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats, a Jewish Christmas caroler, and a purse called Trog. You can find her online at mariaalexander.net

Seanan McGuire

Cody Goodfellow has written five novels, and co-wrote three more with New York Times bestselling author John Skipp. His first two collections, Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All-Monster Action, each received the Wonderland Book Award. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene film Stay At Home Dad, which can be viewed on YouTube. He is also a director of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-San Pedro, and cofounder of Perilous Press, an occasional micropublisher of modern cosmic horror. He lives in Burbank, California, and is currently working on building a perfect bowling team.

Lisa MortonLisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, Bram Stoker Award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” She has published four novels, over a hundred short stories, and three books on the history of Halloween. Her most recent releases include Ghosts: A Haunted History and Cemetery Dance Select: Lisa Morton. She lives in the San Fernando Valley, and can be found online at www.lisamorton.com.

 

 


John Palisano

Hosted by Xach Fromson and Lauren Candia

$10 online or at the door (if there are any tickets left).

Doors at 7:30
Show at 8:00

The Mystic Museum

Books will be sold at the event, courtesy of Skylight Books.

Episode 009!

Episode 9 is here, too! It’s the second half of our show from November of 2015, and features Stephen Jay Schwartz, Chrome Oxide, and Romina Russell. Enjoy, rate, and share it.

 

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(basically, you’re free to download it, play it, share it, etc. so long as you leave it whole and don’t charge anybody for it.)

On October 21st, 2015, Marty McFly arrived in the–wait, no, wrong story. We recorded our special show as part of L.A. Lit Crawl.

This special episode is unedited and presented in its entirety.

Featuring Robert Payne Cabeen, Nicole D. Sconiers, Derek Kirk Kim, Thomas Voorhies, and Tiffany Tang.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(You’re free to download it, play it, share it, etc. so long as you leave it whole and don’t charge anybody for it.)

Episode 007

Episode 7 is the second half of our anniversary show in September of 2015, recorded live at the MiMoDa Studio. We had cake. We promised you new things (like the podcast!). We had amazing authors. This episode features Mallory Reaves, Tananarive Due, and Aimee Bender. Enjoy!

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(You’re free to download it, play it, share it, etc. so long as you leave it whole and don’t charge anybody for it.)

September 2016 Show!

It’s Shades & Shadows’ third anniversary party!

If you’ve been to our previous September shows, you know that can only mean two things: An amazing lineup of authors to knock your socks off, and cake. Last year’s anniversary show kicked off our third year, which saw us launch our podcast, begin author interviews, and bring some of the best award winning authors to our stage. Come celebrate with us as we start Year Four of our journey, and we might give you some hints about what we’ll be up to in our next year.

FEATURING:

Laura Lee Bahr

Laura Lee Bahr is a multi-award winning writer, performer and director. She is the author of two novels Haunt (winner of the Wonderland Book Award), translated into Spanish under the title Fantasma (Orciny Press, which has been nominated for two ‘best translated novel’, the Kelvin award and the Ignotus award) and her recent book (released April, 2016) Long-Form Religious Porn.  Laura also has been a screenwriter for various award-winning films. This year Laura’s debut feature as writer/director, Boned, won “Best Micro-Budget Feature” at the Toronto Independent Film Festival and is currently distributed through Gravitas (available everywhere).  Her latest book, a collection called Angel Meat, will be published in 2017 by Fungasm Press.

You can follow her on social media and at www.lauraleebahr.com

 


sb divyaS.B. Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. When she isn’t designing high speed communications systems, raising her daughter, scratching the cats, or enjoying dinner with her husband, she writes. In her past, she’s used a telescope to find Orion’s nebula, scuba dived with manta rays, and climbed to the top of a thousand year old stupa. She holds degrees in Computational Neuroscience and Signal Processing, and she is currently Assistant Editor for Escape Pod. Her short stories have been published in various magazines, including Lightspeed and Daily Science Fiction, and her writing appears in the indie game Rogue Wizards. Her near future science-fiction novella, Runtime, was released by Tor.com Publications in May, 2016. You can find more online at www.eff-words.com or on Twitter as @divyastweets.

 


 

carmen lauCarmen Lau is the author of The Girl Wakes (Alternating Current, 2016), a collection of short stories and novellas. She received her MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis and currently resides in Atascadero, where she is training to become a psychiatric technician. She occasionally blogs at https://carmenslittlefictions.wordpress.com/ and Tweets @artemisathene.

 


 

Michael Marshall SmithMichael Marshall Smith is a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published over eighty short stories, and four novels — Only Forward, Spares, One of Us and The Servants — winning the Philip K. Dick, International Horror Guild, and August Derleth awards, along with the Prix Bob Morane in France. He has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction four times, more than any other author.

Writing as MICHAEL MARSHALL he has published seven internationally-bestselling thrillers including The Straw Men series, The Intruders — recently a BBC series starring John Simm and Mira Sorvino — and Killer Move. His most recent novel is We Are Here.

He lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife, son, and two cats. You can find him online at www.michaelmarshallsmith.com and @ememess.


 

geneGene O’Neill has seen over 150 of his stories and novellas published, several reprinted in France, Spain, and Russia. Some of these stories have been collected in GHOST SPIRITS, COMPUTERS & WORLD MACHINES, THE GRAND STRUGGLE, IN DARK CORNERS, DANCE OF THE BLUE LADY, and THE HITCHHIKING EFFECT. He has seen five novels published. Gene has been a Stoker finalist eleven times. In 2010 TASTE OF TENDERLOIN won the haunted house for collection; in 2012 THE BLUE HERON won for Long Fiction. Upcoming in 2016 are the four TPBs in the CAL WILD CHRONICLES from Written Backwords Press and a collection from Ominum Gatherum, LETHAL BIRDS. A novella collaboration with Chris Marrs, ENTANGLED SOUL has been accepted by Thunderstorm for an October release. A novel, The White Plague, is at an interested publisher.

 


Brian EvensonBrian Evenson is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection Windeye (Coffee House Press 2012) and the novel Immobility (Tor 2012), both of which were finalists for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association’s award for Best Horror Novel of 2009). His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann’s Tongue. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, Manuela Draeger, David B., and others. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship.His work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Slovenian.

 

 


Hosted by Xach Fromson and Lauren Candia

Doors at 7:30 p.m.
Show at 8:00 p.m.

at The Mystic Museum
3204 W Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, CA 91505

$10 online by clicking below:

Tickets may be available at the door, if we have any left.

Books will be sold by Skylight Books.

(Also, anybody who says/posts “the cake is a lie” is barred from entry and we won’t refund your ticket.)

We caught up with Christopher Farnsworth over Skype to discuss the release of his new novel KILLFILE (Aug 2016, William Morrow). Give it a listen, and check out the book!

What Christopher is reading:

Welcome to our first author interview! We met up with acclaimed sci-fi author Nicholas Sansbury Smith during San Diego ComiCon and sat down to talk with him about the journey of his tenth novel Hell Divers (July 2016, Blackstone Publishing). Click the link below to buy the book for yourself!